do timid minds
(you never know)
denying the new
revere the old?
too timid minds!
you never (no
denying the new)
revere the old

(from
lost forewords; in my M.T.)

***

in heaven I see the fixed and wandering lights:
but who with such black pallor’s tainted them?

(tasso, to
the duke of mantua)

***

… between
night and day appear
there must – some true thing for once.
circumscribe it three times, yet
unspoken, as it’s there, o
unindebted!, will it stay.

(hölderlin,
germanien)

***

chalk
man has just
made his mark
and crumpled//
let the
lyin’ lie

(captain beefheart, strictly
personal)

***

like
end rhyme’s a bad spirit
of plump word bluster…
by the iambic our language
has been half outlawed.

(klopstock, poetological odes)

***

as it’s
always been and always shall be accepted:
new coined names are exchanged that carry imprint of the present…
many’ll be, like leaves, reborn, once fallen from favour,
while words honoured now will wither if users require it.

(horace, art
of poetry 58-71)

***

as your
own tongue’s grown in the mouth, chains grew in your
hands too:
tug at the universe your way, or expect to get dragged.

(hofmannstahl, own
language)

***

delightful, say to them, my latest ditty :
to put their mind at least to how you’re pretty.

(dante, convivio II; canzone VI)

***

rejoice now in the true illusion
and in the earnest play
nothing living is a unity
always it’s a many